Lorelai leaned back, her chest heaving, the sting of iron and steam still cooking her lips. For a moment, her eyes flickered black, obsidian glass shimmering in the Voltite light. Her Hemarite reserve spilt out in faint, glowing waves, the heat radiating from her skin like a smouldering furnace. Veins pulsed crimson and glass beneath her surface, a molten energy map coursing through her.
Her claws twitched as the process began—skin stitching itself together in weaving, precise layers. Fibre rethreaded, fat bubbling and reforming, tissue bonding like molten slaves, muscles twisting into place, and bone knitting with sharp, electric snaps. Every step flared in her mind like a vivid crystalline schematic, each layer building upon the last. It wasn't instinct—it was knowledge, wired and burned in, downloaded into her breath like a living blueprint of demonology.
The scorching tear was excruciating. Her moan grounded her fangs. She could see the matrix of her being, a lattice of flesh, blood, and Hemarite interwoven with cells. Pumping it accelerated her body, strengthening it, improving it. Every cut, every tear, every broken piece—she could map it, deconstruct it, and rebuild it, thread by fragile thread.
But it wasn't perfect. Not yet.
Her lip reformed, her breath touching new skin. It would take practice—so much practice—to regenerate as quickly and efficiently as an Inquisitor. Marshal's kind could heal in seconds, their bodies automated machines designed for efficiency. She wasn't there yet. Her body lagged, and her Hemarite reserves stuttered as the heat flared and dimmed. The theory was solid, but the execution? She'd need time, energy, and blood—a lot of blood.
Her eyes snapped downward, locking on Marshal. He lay sprawled beneath her, his chest rising and falling in shallow, ragged breaths. Exhausted but functional. For now. His body bore the evidence of her work—skin smoother where it had once been torn, the twisted lines of shattered bone realigned. She had done that. She had rebuilt him.
He owed her now.
A flicker of something cruel curled at the edge of her thoughts. She'd hold that debt over him like a tight tether around his throat. She asked him to teach her so she would make him. Like it or not, she had him in her grasp. He'd fight it—of course, he would—but it didn't matter.
"You changed," said Ego.
"No," Lore muttered, her voice akin to cracked glass. She wasn't sure whether she said it for him or herself. "I've never changed."
Admiring the unconscious Inquisitor beneath her, she felt a sting. A prick against all her freshly woven nerves. Then it came. A shiver or a pull from her lungs, the oxygen sapping from her lips. A undulating substance that sought to replace it.
Moments, seconds, and a slap. A sudden vortex of Voidium hit her, the scream flickering the lights. The creature loomed, its form constantly shifting—one moment a writhing mass of reflective liquid, the next a jagged, skeletal figure. The lips were dark and rich, and Edric's eyes burned with hatred. It warped and twisted, mangling parts of bone, skin, and crunched fatty tissue. And her father's claws came for her.
"VIOLETTE!"
Lore's eyes sagged as she faded, her body choosing now to run out of steam.
"Not… now." She said.
Its claws stretched and burned, scraping the steel floor as it lunged, its body trailing Voidium sludge that hissed and evaporated on contact with the air—her throat in slicing distance.
But as her body hit steel, a bullet lit the room in a blast, the impact hitting the creature in a howl. The breath refilled Lore's lungs, her arms climbing Marshal for the fragment of stability, something to pull her to her feet. Something to wake her legs the fuck up.
The gunfire shattered the silence, each blast carving through the haze in Lore's mind. The metallic taste of blood coated her tongue, her legs shaking under the weight of her exhaustion.
Her mind, like an echo chamber, replayed shot after shot, her neurons unable to keep up. Another bullet fired, then another and another. The flashes revealed a face Lore never expected to see. It was filled with rage, hate, and a killing intent on a woman who didn't know how to stand up for herself.
"Die, die," Cass shouted, tears streaming down her face, her fangs bared, as she clicked the trigger. "DIE!"
The Daemon splattered the room with white paint, the reflective cream drying in metallic ice blood. Cass's dress fluttered against her arm like a petal as the recoil shook her with each pull, crimson liquid flicking off her as she screamed.
"LEAVE! US! ALONE!" Cass demanded.
But the creature, wearing Lore's father's lips, smiled. The reflective makeup exploded, splattering Voidium on the walls, bodies, and fangs.
"What?" said Cass, the woman staring in horror. "No … no."
Struggling to roll onto her side, Lore's eyes widened, grabbing a handful of the Inquisitor to get a look. The face, body, and the person who stood in the centre of the blood. A girl, a siren, with green eyes, her eye sockets staring Lore down.
"Cassian," Lore asked, unable to believe it.
It wore Cassian's skin, too.
"This isn't over, princess." She said.
Then, like a shadow of the night, Lucien shot out his fingers. And then—crack. The girl fell, the unhinged smile stained on her skin, and her limp neck, broken—snapped.
"It will never be over. Never. Ever. Over." It giggled
Lucien stamped his boot, the sight even too much for Lore as she struggled to hold her stomach, the white blood pooling around the flakes of skull and brain matter flowing closer. Her mind was seared with that smile, her heart racing.
"Hells," she muttered, unsure if she should be glad or horrified.
Cass stood shaking, gun lowered. Still clicking the empty chamber.
And the room hushed with her, her chest creaking, the pants of breaths all in cryptic sync. She allowed herself to go limp, unable to even stand.
Her shirt was pink now—blood in the stitches.
What was Voidium, again?
What were Daemons?
Why did they want her?
Meanwhile, like a devilish hostess of her desire, Lore resisted the urge to splash, her fingers truly yearning to make some bloody snow angel. Her cogs second-guessing themselves, the idea creeping across her skin like a plague. It's not as if anyone would care. The Daemon was dead, or as dead as a living mist could be. She was… bored.
"Strange," her lips seemed to say. "Why am I so hungry?"